Being the 9th largest city will ‘in no way‘ equate to having the 9th largest fan base or average crowd ‘and for many reasons’ not least some of the larger cities have more than one bigger club eg: LONDON; Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, West Ham, Palace, Fulham. BIRMINGHAM; Villa, West Brom, Birmingham. MANCHESTER; Utd, City. LIVERPOOL; Everton, Liverpool. SHEFFIELD; Utd, Wednesday.
So that’s 15 bigger clubs in those 5 cities alone, then you have a cluster of clubs from smaller cities that have larger fan bases than us for numerous different reasons, historical success, geographic position, recent relevant success etc; Sunderland, Southampton, Wolverhampton, Ipswich, Norwich, Portsmouth, Watford, Burnley, Derby, Middlesbrough, Stoke.
If you then add Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Leicester and we are probably about bang on our correct position of 30th